


Little Monster

by DemiGoddess



Series: Sanguine Dreams: Rowen [12]
Category: Original Work, Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Caitiff - Freeform, Sabbat - Freeform, Torture, Tzimisce, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 14:28:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19086928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemiGoddess/pseuds/DemiGoddess





	Little Monster

[1951, somewhere on the Atlantic]

It’s hungry.

The sloshing of bilge-water stirs it from its empty slumber. The violence of the ocean filtered through the bolted steel frame of the ship echoes in its ears. It doesn’t hear the rats anymore.

Its blood quickens in excitement. It will get real food tonight.

The journey across the ocean has been long, although it’s hard to tell. Rational thoughts like time and distance are far away right now. Food comes first. There are thousands of heartbeats echoing from above it, all wrapped and ready in little metal boxes, like cans of sardines. Easy. It briefly bemoans that there will be no hunt, no chase.

It can think a bit more clearly as it licks the ship engineer’s blood from its lips. It now knows the ship should pull into a harbor near New York any day now. This is good. It would not do for the rest of the prey to notice that too many of its number have gone missing before the trip is over. An writhing sensation revolts in its chest at the word “prey.” Emotions are returning it seems. Necessary, but annoying. Emotions complicate feeding.

It shakes its head, as though disturbing cobwebs, as it lowers itself back into the bilge to sleep the last leg of the journey. Its slumber was not so empty as it had thought. The hazy images of dreams return to it now. Vague impressions only. It remembers images of comfort, a feeling of warmth. The distant sounds of explosions and the feel of tears on its cheeks. And then blood. So much blood. So many good meals. 

Its shoulders suddenly shudder violently. Fear? Yes, that’s what this last image brings. A writhing darkness. Hungering for it--her, pronouns are back now-- reaching out with a single writhing limb… or was it twenty?

Rowen comes back to herself. She pulls her knees to her chin in the tight confines of the bilge. She hates that fear is the one thing she feels clearly now. That and hunger. She’s lost everything else. That thing. She had sought it out, thinking it to be someone that she could fight, or at least yell at. But no, it was so much more… or less, judging by how similar they are right now. 

Even now, hundreds of miles away, Rowen remembers Andrada’s touch. Her hand was constructed wrong. No. Different. Useful and pragmatic. Perfect. The scotswoman shivers again. Oh, the gifts those hands promised! Something in her aches to return to them. It’s one thing to face down a monster armed with claws and hunger and hate. It’s a very different thing to see the monster offer you the world.

Her touch was familiar as well, even though Rowen had never felt it before. It was the mockery of someone else. How did she know?

The boat rocks. The ocean hasn’t ceased its violent bucking. Fear and pain is lost in the waves.

“No,” Rowen chides herself. “Dinnae think aboot her. Think o’ the lads an lassies ye came here for.” She hopes that helping in this conflict will make her feel human again.

She knows that won’t happen.


End file.
